7 Reasons No One Should Ever Eat Pumpkin Pie

Please admit it: Pumpkin pie sucks.

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Thanksgiving is, perhaps, the greatest American holiday. It's our chance to do what we do best: Eat. All. Day. 

Though if you think about it, the meal itself is a little weird. On no other day do we eat turkey (which always turns out dry and is therefore yucky), cranberry sauce, stuffing (the best part of the meal by far), and sweet potatoes that aren't fries. It's sort of an un-American celebration of America. (We should really be eating burgers, fries and milkshakes, but whatever.) It rocks because nothing happens except eating: no presents, no religious service, no action except using the TV remote and the oven. 

So why do we end this amazing day of hedonistic consumption with a dessert made out of a vegetable? 

Sure, everyone's all in a fever about pumpkin—the notorious PSL, the launch of a million new pumpkin-flavored things, that viral mini corgi vs. mini pumpkin video. But face it: Pumpkin SUCKS in desserts (pumpkin sucks in everything, really, but that's another story). 

So herewith, let me present you with seven important truths about pumpkin pie and why we're letting ourselves down–letting America down, dammit–by allowing it to be the icing on the cake of the perfect Thanksgiving meal.

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No one ever thought, "How awesome would an asparagus pie be? String bean pie?" Not even a squash pie sounds good. The closest we get is a rhubarb pie, but you know what makes that tolerable? Strawberries and sugar. Strawberries and sugar are there so you forget it has a vegetable in it. 

The crust is good. But you have to scrape all the vegetable off to enjoy it. 

The spices in a pumpkin pie take me back to '80s cologne and the Yankee Candle factory. Yes, I know the candles came after the pie, but somehow the pumpkin spice thing in car air fresheners and candles and everything else has made me associate the pie with completely artificial, chemical scents. Now when that pumpkin pie comes out of the oven, I feel like I'm stuck in a windows-closed classroom with a guy drenched in Drakar Noir in 1986 or at my grandmother's house in Florida with a Glade PlugIn air freshener in every room. 

The fact that this is called a "vegetable" at Thanksgiving is SUCH a win. I tend to scavenge out all the marshmallows, Phish-food style, but ultimately I do get a little vegetable as part of the mix—and then my parents are proud of me for eating a vegetable. (All veggie sides should have marshmallows on them.) But moreover, THIS is where pumpkin pie belongs—in the quiche/veggie side category, where you get credit for eating a vegetable when you're really eating bacon (quiche) and marshmallows (sweet potatoes). PS: My mother-in-law, who is a huge health nut, makes a sick sweet potatoes-and-marshmallows side. And I love her for it because I know if she could live her best life, she'd eat marshmallows all day—and that, if nothing else, is what Thanksgiving gives us: the chance to break the rules. 

Pumpkin is everywhere. Because of loyalty to the Thanksgiving holidays—or maybe just because pumpkins are cute and round and picking them is fun—our obsessions has spawned an army of pumpkin-themed things. So not only do I have to contend with this completely ridiculous dessert at Thanksgiving, but now I can't avoid it elsewhere. Maybe if there were more chocolate-and-pumpkin combo desserts, I could get on board...

But, honestly, that's the only good thing in almost every pie. I would eat my flip-flop if it had whipped cream on it.

Chocolate is the perfect dessert ingredient—and might actually make pumpkin tolerable. I have been making this chocolate-pumpkin layer cake from Florence Fabricant for years, only to avoid choking down real pumpkin pie at our family Thanksgivings. Notice, though, that this solution is a cake, not a pie. The fact that there aren't more chocolate pies is absurd. Even most pecan pies don't have chocolate. (Thankfully, our friends over at Good Housekeeping know how to do it right.) 

And don't get me started on key lime pie. Limes are the LEAST popular of the citrus fruits, only tolerable in a gin and tonic and on Thai food, so why is there a pie made of them? Whoever is in charge of pie recipes got it all wrong. All pies should be like this black-bottom chocolate cream pie. Even the crust is chocolate. Finally, a dessert worthy of Thanksgiving.

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